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Thanks. That's great to hear that you enjoyed it. I haven't read the graphic novel so I will look out for it.

Yeah, it was a jam game so I didn't have enough time to do everything that I wanted to do and balance it better and add more content (I had much, much more in mind). I lost a lot of time in the beginning because I had wanted to make a Bitsy game but because the jam theme was a mechanic rather than a theme I couldn't figure out what to do and had to switch to Twine and come up with something suitable there. Then it turned out to be more of an ambitious concept than I realised.

I enjoyed making the art, though, and learnt a few things, which is always something I hope happens in a jam so it wasn't a bad experience but sometimes a game just doesn't work out the way you'd like.

Sorry about that oxygen. Space capitalism is unforgiving!

Oh, that's awesome! Thank you! That supports me and them. That's so great!

I hope you enjoy it.

Cool, cool.

It is a nice font, yeah. I was so sad to see there's no zero (or any punctuation characters) because I would have liked to use it for a few (non game) projects,

Because from what little I've seen of Eurovision it's the most absurd and outlandish stuff (well, a lot of it), with questionable music, fashion, and visuals that's somehow amazing to look at and often fun and that's how this game feels too.

Oh, I see the font doesn't have a zero. That's odd. It looks like he designed one (https://fontm.com/theend-font/) but it's not in the TrueType file.

This is so absurdist. I love it! It feels like if Eurovision was a game, it would be this game.

I don't think I've ever played an endless runner before where you're in front of the runner looking back. That was interesting. I really like the animation of the things flying towards the existential head, especially the way they start spinning completely out of control as they get very close. I like the collection of objects too.

I know it's just a training project but if you ever do an update there are those of us who prefer arrow keys for controls. Also, you spelt "design" wrong on the credits screen. The "0" (zero) of the counter font also doesn't seem to be displaying properly.

If you're open to feature requests, I'd really like the ability to  (try to) ninja smack the things flying at me with a key press. You pretty much have the animations you would need there already.

I enjoyed this. I actually found it quite relaxing.

I'm sorry to hear that you're finding it makes it too lengthy for you doing the development because as a player it really makes it even more interesting!

I really appreciate these activism games that you make about Ukraine. I think they tell a story in a way that traditional journalism can't, perhaps because as the player you become an active participant.

You did some interesting things in Bitsy here too - as always - which is another reason why I love your games. I particularly liked the "close-up" bits where you get into the truck and drive.

Congratulations to all the entrants and well done to the winners. This was an amazing jam this year with so many great entries and I'm always blown away by what people are able to do in a weekend and how different everything is. I'm still going through all the games but I've enjoyed everything I've played so far.

Thank you to the judges and especially to Free Lives for hosting. I really appreciate that you do this jam for us every year.

I know! For "research purposes" I tried to stomp a few people and saw they were safe, which I thought was a nice touch. What I meant in terms of sorry was that I'm stomping their town to bits and I'm enjoying it and this is right after I've just played a few times as a pacifist and discovered it's possible! (Guess that made me the monster....)

But I wanted to make a great piece of gothic art - just because! It had no function in the story, it was just going to be there to look pretty!

I'm glad you enjoyed the humour though.

I'm also glad to see you're around. I've been wondering if you're ok so I was glad to get a notification the other day about your new game, which I need to download (plus I like endless runners, which is even better), and then I saw there's a Bitsy game that's a little older that I didn't see when it was released so I'm looking forward to playing both when I have a moment.

I played this (a few times) a few days ago and managed to find an almost pacifist path to the keys if you walk along right at the bottom of the screen and I really liked that it could be possible to play this in this way so if you ever intend to work further on the game then a pacifist challenge would be quite fun. However, the sound design is so good that stomping around the city ended up feeling incredibly satisfying (sorry pixel people!) and I enjoyed doing that too, as well as all the little comments your kaiju makes while trying to tiptoe around. Really, really great game for such a simple premise and the lack of time you had to devote to it. Well done! (I love the art and animation too, of course!)

Ha ha! Yeah, ok, I missed that.

I have an old computer, which is the main problem, but Unity in general is just awful (besides all the spyware and analytics, plus how it leaves junk files all over a player's computer) because it ramps up the GPU on even the most innocuous stuff and that's been a problem since before my computer became "old".

I'll check the game out again once you publish the next update!

Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it! I feel as if I told the story that I had intended to tell, albeit in a very concentrated jam way. What would you want to see expanded?

Thanks! Bitsy is designed for a kind of cozy/handcrafted feel, as you note, although most games people make tend to be happier. (There are some other heavy or dark/horroresque ones, though, since you really can make any kind of game in it.)

One thing I would do is make each day a bit longer (more goats that meet and don't meeting the requirements) and randomise the goats (except for the first day, of course). Still fun though as is.

Thank you! Some people do not appreciate the aesthetic (and the limitations it and Bitsy, specifically, create, which can be very difficult to work with) it but it's always great to hear from the people who do.

Ah, damn. If you can get it up after the jam or, alternatively, see about making a new downloadable build with some small tweak because maybe there's just something in that original zip file configuration that's a false positive?

Cool idea. Plays a bit janky on my computer, as all Unity games do (if they aren't already actively trying to overheat my computer and blow it up), so I couldn't get a very good score. I have to be that guy and say that the sound of (musical) whistling really irritates me so be aware that it's something some people would prefer to be able to switch off. I also realised the scroll wheel was selecting things that weren't there, and then I got a fifth tentacle in one game but it sill didn't help (how many can you get?) and most of the time nothing was selected, so I switched to the right click in the game after that. It still felt a bit cumbersome though but I was able to play a bit better.

The water effect is really great.

Question, though: you might be the beast but are you the monster? If some aggressive whistling boats came into my sea house I'd also slap 'em.

I've played both versions. You've made some good improvements to the post jam version. However I still get confused about the mandates, I think because you just get used to a new day and the new rules and then it ends and then you have the next day and a bunch of new rules so your brain never gets enough time just to rest a little with one scenario. Also I find that the instructions for the first day are not clear as to what you are supposed to do about the third brother. I did appreciate, however, that you could read the current day's fax at any time.

I didn't like the South Africanness of it because it's only used in the dialogue; there's nothing else about the game that is in any way South African, so to me it doesn't feel as if it fits. However I recognise that this is a personal preference and others may feel differently.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed this very much and I really liked the art.

I didn't quite have the hang of the controls in the beginning due to the lack of directions and subtlety of the highlight around the controllable objects (plus, your cursor is often on an object when a scene loads so you don't realise it's highlighted) but I guess one could argue that it suits the theme of the game! I played through twice and didn't quite understand the driving bit either time, although the second time I got through it more easily knowing by then how to control the game.

I like pineapple on pizza but I did laugh both times I had to put the tomato sauce on the burnt steak.

In all, really good job for 48 hours and excellent work on the art, plus coming up with the collection of "mundane" offensive ideas you incorporated into the game. I would enjoy playing a longer version of this.

Thank you!

Yeah. It's easy (and fun) to write stories about beasts that you can other but if you look around at the real world right now it's full of monsters - they're in the headlines every day - who selfishly wield their privilege on purpose to make life horrible for everyone else. Thank you for playing and the kind comment.

Thanks!

I'm so glad you were! Thank you.

Thank you!

The name... damn. I think I only got it in the last hour (aiming for the 6pm "you're supposed to be finished" deadline) and it was so stressful because I couldn't set up the itch page properly until I knew what it was called. Nothing came into my head for the three days I was working on this and eventually I went through all the text I had written to see if there were any phrases I had used that would work and eventually saw two different bits that I realised would work together and it's also very on brand for me if you look at the titles of some of my other games.

As I mentioned elsewhere, in an ideal world I would have composed at least one track and added some sound effects but time didn't allow for it. A lot of Bitsy games also don't have it so it's not unusual for a Bitsy game, at least.

I'm so happy to hear that you enjoyed the humour, especially because I know it's not for everyone!

Is it? In my defence, I've never used the name before in any of my projects. I also just went with the first name I could think of that seemed old-timey enough without being stodgy. I was also tempted to make some sort of pun related to "Thomas Was Alone" to name the game but I couldn't think of one.

Bitsy has built-in support for audio but it has technical limitations that can be irritating for players and it's also very jarring chiptune, which is great for some games but wasn't appropriate for this one. I had intended to compose something separately so that there would be an ambient background theme but I didn't have time, nor have I tested the hack you have to use to get it to work and that would have been asking for trouble. So, sadly, no audio. Plus, as you note, the quiet does work for this game.

I'm glad you enjoyed the story though.

Thanks. man! That means a lot, coming from you. I haven't played your game yet but I looked at the page a few days ago and I was gawking at your dinosaur kaiju sprite's walk cycle.

Bitsy is built out of 8x8 pixel blocks (I had assumed it's something you would have played with at some point) so it lends itself towards really minimalist 1-bit(ish) pixel art, although there are some hacks and some tricks you can use to do more complicated things. It does work well for the story, though, yeah. Lets you build it in your imagination, which is even more disturbing. Thanks for playing!

Yeah, I got the same error as soon as the file downloaded and my system zapped it to oblivion before I could even look at it.

I would have liked some more narrative exploration beyond the fact that you are a skeleton so I don't think the game works very hard to adhere to the theme. Why are you a skeleton? Who are you fighting and why? Are you the bad guy or are they the bad guys?

I have a very old and slow computer so the speed was just right (I've seen the comments about the uncapped frame rate) but sometimes the controls felt unresponsive, with the character continuing to run, even though I wasn't pressing a key, or continuing to execute a move, which might be explained by the animation lock that someone else described but doesn't explain the running that sometimes got stuck. When it was working properly the controls were good and I was able to figure out a method for fighting the big enemies.

I really like the art and choice of restricted palette, as well as the animation of the sprites (and the parallax scrolling). Did you use an engine to make this game and, if so, what was it?

I really liked the art and enjoyed the music too. Well done! Nothing much else I can add that hasn't already been said - the enemies had much further reach than the art/perspective suggested and I was confused as to why the game kept going when I had deposited 20 gold but I've seen the comment now about the ending and the screenshot.

Thank you! That was the entire point I was working to so I'm glad it came across well.

Thank you, thank you! I have all the sprites blowing in the other direction too. I was going to do a some scenes leading up to the ending that would showcase them but I reined in my scope creep! The only one that made it into the game was Eleanor at the end.

This is good work, considering the fact that you're in primary school. The controls are really smooth and responsive  - I've played many, many games by experienced developers where the controls are horrible and it makes the game really unpleasant to play so well done to you!

I can also see that you really put a lot of thought into your level design, with lots of variety and experimentation, plus a few tricks! That is also really excellent work.

I laughed out loud at the ending too!

Please ignore the person or people who are giving some of the games low ratings. This is a jam and people shouldn't do that. You did really well. I hope you enjoyed making the game. That's what's most important.

Thank you. It really makes me happy to hear when someone has enjoyed my work.

I was hoping I would be able to make a comedy game and then they announced the theme so the best I could do was dark humour. Thank you for playing.

I haven't played your game yet but part of the challenge of the jam is figuring this out for yourself. So you have to think of the term "monster"  (you can look it up on various web sites) and all the different meanings it can have. You then need to think about how some of those meanings can be added to the story you want to tell in your game, or how a mechanic in the game might somehow hint at another meaning. For example, a monster can be a creature (which I think is what you did?) but a monster can also be a way a character (or a business) behaves that hurts other people or creatures. There are also other meanings.

Once the jam is over you'll see how people have done this in their games so have a look. Then, when you enter the next jam, think about how people in this jam thought about the theme and try to do that for your project.

However, for this jam, you still have time to work on your game a bit more if you want to and have time. Just upload a new version when you're ready.